July 2013

WALL\THERAPY 2013 Daily Checkup and Scan of Founder Ian Wilson

July 22, 2013

WALL\THERAPY began in earnest this weekend with a Friday kickoff party that welcomed arriving artists and the local community together and then jumped directly into the making of art with many murals going up on walls around town in Rochester simultaneously Saturday and Sunday. The dual pronged focus of WALL\THERAPY is a mural festival that draws Street Artists and graffiti artists from around the world to work alongside local artists and to raise awareness of people’s access to medical technology.

Daze. Work in progress. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Jason Wilder)

Street Art and medicine; You may wonder how the two are related, and the answer is that these are two of Ian Wilson’s greatest passions. A Brooklyn born graff writer who went on to pursue a career in teleradiology, Ian works long doctors hours at his regular gig in a local hospital and puts this WALL\THERAPY event together with partners, volunteers, and community members. Finally, he is working to bring imaging and diagnostic equipment to communities around the world who don’t have this basic tool to treat disease.

Daze. Work in progress. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Jason Wilder)

Since BSA supports people who actually give back, we are very happy to be the Media Partner for WALL\THERAPY and are proud of the artists who are lending their talents to this initiative in this northwestern town of New York State.

This year the roster has expanded to include an eclectic mix of a few serious old skool NYC graffiti names spanning 4 decades, a healthy handful of international and nationally known Street Artists that are defining the scene today, and some important local talents.

Daze. Work in progress. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Jason Wilder)

As a group they represent a solid lineup and are a reflection of the inclusive approach that WALL\THERAPY is taking, while skewing toward high quality. The list includes Bile, Binho, Case, Cern, Change, DalEast, Daze, Ever, Faith47, Adam Francey, Freedom, Freddy Sam, Jessie & Katey, Labrona, Lady Pink and Smith, Lea Rizzo, LNY, Mike Ming, Mr. Prvrt, Faring Purth, Pose2 and Range, ROA, Sarah C. Rutherford, and St Monci among others.

All week we will bring you exclusive new images of the creative progress and some insights into the personal stories of some of the artists as they create their works in this unique combining of art, science, and community inspiration.

Thanks today to photographers Jason Wilder, Alex Stuart, and Mark Deff for sharing these images with BSA readers.

Mr. Prvrt. Work in progress. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Alex Stuart)

Mr. Prvrt. Work in progress. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Alex Stuart)

Freddy Sam. Work in progress. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Jason Wilder)

Bile. Work in progress. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Alex Stuart)

Bile. Work in progress. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Alex Stuart)

Lady Pink. Work in progress. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Jason Wilder)

Adam Francey. Work in progress. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Alex Stuart)

Adam Francey. Work in progress. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Alex Stuart)

Connor Harrington. Work in progress. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Mark Deff)

Smith. Work in progress. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Jason Wilder)

Smith. Work in progress. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Jason Wilder)

Wise Two,  Lady Pink, Smith . Works in progress. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Jason Wilder)

Here’s a video from a previous edition of WALL\THERAPY that lays out the inspiration that lead to and the community feeling that comes about from the event.

To learn more please visit:

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Brooklyn Street Art is proud to be the Media Partner of Wall Therapy 2013

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Massive Installation by Isaac Cordal in Nantes “Follow The Leaders”

July 22, 2013

New Installation Expands His Critique of Global Capitalism and Its Soldiers

Street Artist and Public Artist Isaac Cordal has just finished his most expansive installation of his little corporate and military men to date in Nantes, the city once known as the European capital of the human slave trade. “Follow the Leaders” is “a critical reflection on our inertia as a social mass,” explains Cordal as he describes the massive installation of about 2000 individual pieces.

Isaac Cordal. Nantes, France. June 2013 (photo © Luis Garcia)

As part of the summer long Le Voyage à Nantes, a large series of installations and cultural events throughout the French city, Cordal’s sad little men again trudge through a grey and soulless world, sometimes staring, sometimes drowning, their dour and thoroughly spent demeanor only lightened by their miniature scale.

Isaac Cordal. Nantes, France. June 2013 (photo © Luis Garcia)

It is meant as “a metaphor for the collapse of capitalism and the side effects of progress,” he says of the three month installation whose main stage at the Place du Bouffay occupies a 20 m x 18 m space that is illuminated at night. While you may recognize the businessmen figures you may not remember seeing the military soldiers that now mingle freely in these barren and destroyed landcapes. With these slight alterations, including the technological addition of wiring and electricity, common area feels like occupied area in a state of continuous war. The effect of Cordals work is now is darker than before, even in the daylight, and deserves our attention.

Isaac Cordal. Nantes, France. June 2013 (photo © Luis Garcia)

Isaac Cordal. Nantes, France. June 2013 (photo © Luis Garcia)

Isaac Cordal. Nantes, France. June 2013 (photo © Luis Garcia)

Isaac Cordal. Nantes, France. June 2013 (photo © Luis Garcia)

Isaac Cordal. Nantes, France. June 2013 (photo © Luis Garcia)

Isaac Cordal. Nantes, France. June 2013 (photo © Luis Garcia)

Isaac Cordal. Nantes, France. June 2013 (photo © Isaac Cordal)

Isaac Cordal. Nantes, France. June 2013 (photo © Isaac Cordal)

Isaac Cordal. Nantes, France. June 2013 (photo © Isaac Cordal)

Isaac Cordal. Nantes, France. June 2013 (photo © Luis Garcia)

Isaac Cordal. Nantes, France. June 2013 (photo © Isaac Cordal)

Isaac Cordal. Nantes, France. June 2013 (photo © Isaac Cordal)

Isaac Cordal. Nantes, France. June 2013 (photo © Isaac Cordal)

Isaac Cordal. Nantes, France. June 2013 (photo © Isaac Cordal)

Mr. Cordal would like to thank all the people who helped him to realize the project, Le Voyage Nantes (especially David, Marie, Nathan, Gregoire and Catherine), his fantastic team; Cyril, Xavier, Eric, Pierre,Wielfried, Fabienne, Elizabeth Coutant and Elizabeth Ausina, Cristophe, Elliot, Luis, Stephan, Julian, Romain, Yves, Jan (Beaufort), Valérie, and his friends and family.

For more information on Follow the Leaders, please click HERE

 

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Images Of The Week: 07.21.13

July 21, 2013

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Adam Young, Adelaide, Am3ba, Bask, Buff Monster, David Flores, Hero, Nils Westegard, Olek, Pop Mortem, Rep 1, Skount, Street Hart and Wakuda.

Top image Olek and crew cover an entire locomotive train in Łódź, Poland over the course of two days. (photo © Olek)

Olek. Lodz, Poland. (photo © Olek)

Pop Mortem (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nils Westergard. Adelaide, South Australia (photo © Nils Westergard)

Skount in Amsterdam (photo © Skount)

Rep 1. C Train, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bask in Denver, Colorad. (photo © Bask)

Bask in San Francisco, CA (photo © Bask)

Street Hart (photo © Jaime Rojo)

RIP MCA by David Flores for Delta Bravo Urban Exploration Team (photo © David Flores)

A new tribute to musician and activist MCA of the Beastie Boys by David Flores starts begins a series of historical sites that Delta Bravo Urban Exploration will be doing. The mural is located by what was once home to the Beastie Boys G-Son Studios in Atwater Village, California.

David would like to send special thanks to Farmer Piper, Olivia Noelle Bevilacqua, and the whole DBUET crew. MCA RIP

Wakuda . Am3ba (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Wakuda. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

HERO. GuangZhoo, China. (photo © Hero)

Buff Monster (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Buff Monster (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Union Square, NYC. 2013 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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WALL\THERAPY 2013 Starts With FREEDOM in a Tunnel

July 20, 2013 ,

BSA is totally psyched to be your source for hot exclusive images and a few scintillating stories that unfold during WALL\THERAPY, the Street Art festival anchored in Rochester, New York that is kicking off right about…. Wait! It already started! Here is your first dispatch.

FREEDOM – that’s what Street Art and graffiti means to a whole lot of people – is something that seems endangered around the world (including here), and is the name of a NYC graffiti writer who started off the 2013 Wall Therapy festival by painting in a………. wait for it…………. tunnel!

For the first time in eighteen years.

Freedom. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Matt DeTurck)

For those readers not familiar with Freedom Tunnel at Manhattan’s northern West End, it basically got it’s name from this guy because he held it down during the 80s and early 90s. Not only did he basically take up residency there for years, he also stretched his creative legs and let his mind free from the constraints of traditional graff lettering and style to entertain portraiture, pop art, advertising and even the Rennaissance. So how fitting that he’s debuting here in a tunnel, this time in the old Rochester subway, where he decided to return to pop influences that formed his youth.

Freedom. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Matt DeTurck)

There are a few artists who we identify as missing links, connective tissue, between New York’s storied graffiti history and today’s Street Art scene, and Freedom is one of them. He spoke with us about this trip back underground:

Brooklyn Street Art: In a way, it strikes us that there was more actual freedom to be yourself in this tunnel than the one that bears your name – whether because the original is now inhospitable or because it carries the weight of memories and associations, possibly even expectations. Is that true?
Freedom: When I painted in the original Freedom Tunnel from 1980 to 1995 nobody cared, and that was great for me. It allowed me to fail — which I think is a big part of the artistic process. The tunnel wasn’t even called the Freedom Tunnel until 1990 and the works inside of it had no value. Today, when I do a piece there’s a whole lot more to think about.

Brooklyn Street Art: Did you scope around this tunnel for a good source of light to frame your work?
Freedom: I spent the entire morning of my first day in the tunnel finding the right spots for the paintings. Admittedly, I miss the shafts of light from the Freedom Tunnel.

Freedom. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Matt DeTurck)

Brooklyn Street Art: Here in Rochester you returned to a personal nostalgia with advertising art, pop art, branding and that visual vocabulary. Some of your past work has also referenced European painting tradition and with some of the new Street Artists now making similar references (like Gaia, Dan Witz, Lister’s ballerinas and even Conor Harrington) do you have any inclination to knock out something painterly once in a while?
Freedom: My large murals – even when they are painterly – are merely impressions. I like to think of them as drawings done in spray paint. If I was going to paint on a wall then I might as well go all the way and grid it and become a muralist, but that doesn’t interest me. I do more labor intensive works on canvas.

Brooklyn Street Art: Do you have a personal collection of ephemera that you are digging the most right now? Or is your collection primarily in your mind?
Freedom: If there’s one thing I found out from when they closed down the Freedom Tunnel, it is that it’s a state of mind. When I decided to go back to buried treasure from my youth I Googled images from 1965 to 1967 and I tried to find things that had stuck with me. Thirty years ago I would’ve needed a more specific object, one that I had legitimately held in my hand. Today when I pore through the images I try to find things that are indicative of a bygone era. I’m fascinated by the terrible printing of the 60s – most of it is red, white and blue. That’s what I’m in to now, although it could change.

Freedom. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Matt DeTurck)

BSA is very pleased to start the weeks’ coverage of Wall Therapy with the voice of Freedom himself describing his experience as an essay sparked by the memories brought back from painting in a tunnel for the first time in almost two decades. He starts off by telling us how he used to retrieve treasure through street gratings, an apt metaphor for an artist who once turned a tunnel into a museum.

“When I was a kid in the 60’s my parents wouldn’t let me off the block.

I was, however, allowed to go ‘subway fishing’ on Lexington and 88th Street because it did not require me to cross any streets. The grating I fished through was located at a bus stop – which meant there were many buried treasures including: buffalo nickels, mercury dimes, baseball cards, political buttons, matchbook covers, a Green Hornet ring – the list was endless. I was able to fish out lots of great stuff with a string, a lock and a wet piece of gum.

Freedom. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Matt DeTurck)

When we moved to the West Side in 1967 I dragged part of my haul with me to my new neighborhood where I traded it for other pop culture ephemera. In 1980, when I started painting in the Freedom Tunnel these images began to re-emerge. Because of their proximity to a spot where (city) Parks employees got drunk and took naps, they painted over the paintings. I moved to a different section of the tunnel.

Freedom. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Matt DeTurck)

Thirty-three years later I had the chance to repaint some of the images that were dear to me. The original paintings were done in silver and black – after all, who would ever think of priming a wall?

Everything has changed. These paintings are not only done in color, the bottle cap is done with transparent paint. Tape and cardboard were used to make it a little crisper, and I had an amazing assistant named Justin from the Wall Therapy team who could point out mistakes while I was still on the ladder.

Freedom. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Matt DeTurck)

What used to be a paranoid solitary pursuit turned into a celebration of painting.

And that’s kind of what this is about.

My favorite image in Rochester was done by an artist from Capetown. It is a long colorful arm that points to a message – ‘For the City of Rochester, Thank You!’

Add me to that list.”

Chris Pape / FREEDOM

Freedom. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Matt DeTurck)

Freedom pieces photographed by Matt DeTurck. All locations are in the old Rochester Subway.

Special thanks to Ian Wilson, Erich Lehman, and John Magnus Champlin.

To learn more please visit:

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Brooklyn Street Art is proud to be the Media Partner of Wall Therapy 2013

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Miron Milic Mural Haiku at Boombarstick

July 20, 2013

Croatian born illustrator Miron Milic is known by dear friends for his erotic illustrations but he created what you would typically regard as a nature loving mural for the Boombarstick Festival this month. Based on a Haiku from Japanese poet and painter Yosa Buson, Milic invites you to take off your shoes and get your feet wet.

A summer river being crossed
how pleasing
with sandals in my hands!

Yosa Buson
(1716 ~ 1783)

 

 

Miron Milic. Boombarstick. Vodnjan, Croatia. (photo © Swen Serbic)

Miron Milic. Boombarstick. Vodnjan, Croatia. (photo © Swen Serbic)

Miron Milic. Detail. Boombarstick. Vodnjan, Croatia. (photo © Swen Serbic)

Miron Milic. Boombarstick. Vodnjan, Croatia. (photo © Swen Serbic)

 

See Hitnes at Boombarstick: Street Art in Croatia from last week.

 

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BSA Film Friday: 07.19.13

July 19, 2013

 

Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening: MOMO in Jamaica and Cuba with Angelino, POSE and REVOK in NYC, Ian Strange AKA Kid Zoom and “Suburban” project, and “The Story of The Fisherman”.

BSA Special Feature: MOMO in Jamaica and Cuba
with traveling companion Angelo Milano

FAME Festival impresario Mr. Milano just released the completed video diary of his trip to Cuba and Jamaica this spring with Street Artist/Fine Artist/Abstract Painter/None of the Above MOMO. The color, patterns, and expressive people are rich, as are his observatory reveries – all strung together as a culmination of many creative interludes recorded in his personal style and edited together as a road-trippy and happy paintcation. Don’t let the 20 minute length deter you, this is as good as going on a vacation, but you can’t go because you are stuck at your desk aren’t you. Well, this will help you pretend. Guarantee.

POSE + REVOK in NYC

The Seventh Letter crew gives you a nice recap of some of the street and gallery action a month ago for Revok and Pose’s New York visit. Most illuminating are the two soliloquies of the artists during the opening as they deliriously ruminate on their method of art making and the philosophy behind the name of the show.

See the BSA full coverage of the Houston Street Wall going up  HERE

REVOK AND POSE and the Transformation of The Houston Wall

 

Ian Strange AKA Kid Zoom: Suburban

Repositioning himself as cultural critic behind the lense and in front of it, Kid Zoom targets the pleasant mythology that served as iconic foundation for the middle class that blossomed in first world countries after the second world war, the aspirational quarter acre tract in a grid full of nearly identical homes. Part examination of the fiction perpetuated, part target practice at perhaps his own youth, the “Suburban” project is ready to demolish what’s left of that neighborhood feeling.

 

“The Story of The Fisherman”

Street Artist and illustrator Vladimir Chernyshev discovered a low cost D.I.Y. way to make a story slowly animate and shares it here in “The Story of The Fisherman”. Don’t expect explosions, or even one quick edit – this slowly advancing diorama peaks your imagination as remembered in a childrens storybook – almost brooding, yet incandescent.

The St. Petersburg based Chernyshev explains how his short story about one man’s disappearance was hand-drawn, hand illuminated, and very gentle advanced.

“At the time of the film’s production I used a self-built wooden box with a glass screen atop and candles at the bottom – that caused the light to fill the carbon-paper. The image was made by erasure of the paper’s upper layer with a metal stick. A simple mechanism slowly rolls the tape of 12 meters through the glass screen showing the lighted erased parts of carbon-paper.”

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Culture Jamming Street Artist COMBO Stages Topless Spectacle in Paris

July 18, 2013

A Femen Revolution with French Street Artist COMBO

In the face of 21st Century misogyny and a general discomfort with public nipples of the female variety, a male street artist named COMBO just staged a high profile half naked protest with wheat-paste, brushes, and breasts in Paris on July 14.  Reinterpreting the painter Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People that commemorated the July Revolution of 1830, COMBO brought the famous topless symbol of Liberty into the streets of 2013 by way of tribute to a brash new feminist movement that is appearing more often across Europe.

COMBO. “Femen Leading The  People (or the street’s tribute to feminism)”. Detail. Paris, France. July 2013. (photo © and courtesy the artist)

“By hijacking such an iconic piece of art,” says the twenty something art director cum Street Artist, “I want to denunciate the discrimination and other misogynistic behavior that women still suffer too often and to pay a tribute to the activists’ fight.” The activists in this case are people like Inna Shevshenko, the Gen Y leader of Femen, a theatrical and warrior-like group of women who advocate in public displays of power and bare chests to address issues like sexism, misogyny, homophobia, religious hypocrisy, and sex trafficking.

COMBO. “Femen Leading The  People (or the street’s tribute to street feminism)” Paris, France. July 2013. (photo © and courtesy the artist)

Sure, breasts of young women are naturally attention grabbers and they’ve been accused of cheap manipulation to sell an idea but they contend it is on par with the same objectification that is used to sell shampoo or cars and this time women are the decision makers regarding message.

“A woman’s naked body has always been the instrument of the patriarchy,” Shevshenko is quoted as saying in The Guardian, “they use it in the sex industry, the fashion industry, advertising, always in men’s hands.” Rather than presenting the allegorical goddess-figure of 19th century painters, these women are not striking a pleasant, pleasing and pliant pose, but rather one of power in their efforts to champion rights for women and girls.

COMBO. “Femen Leading The  People (or the street’s tribute to street feminism)” Paris, France. July 2013. (photo © and courtesy the artist)

It’s traditional for the President of France to unveil a new version of the heralded Marianne on July 15 to be used on an official stamp, and COMBO may have intended to upstage the unveiling by a day.  And in a matter of uncanny timing, this little bit of wheat-pasting presaged the news that the actual inspiration for this years model was none other than Inna Shevshenko.

According to Reuters “A postage stamp depicting France’s cultural symbol Marianne has touched off a flurry of controversy after one of its creators revealed it was inspired by a topless feminist activist who hacked down a Christian cross in Kiev last year with a chainsaw.”

Which leads us back to the Street Art installation and photo op – COMBO tells us that his new piece stayed complete for only one day until it was smothered by graffiti.

Well, not the top half.

COMBO poses with members of Femen before their just completed installation in Paris.  (photo © and courtesy the artist)

La Liberté guidant le peuple (Liberty Leading the People) by Eugène Delacroix, 1830

COMBO. “Femen Leading The  People (or the street’s tribute to feminism)” Paris, France. July 2013. (photo © and courtesy the artist)

COMBO’s installation today as graffiti takes over the lower portion. (photo © and courtesy the artist)

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Gallery Brooklyn Presents: “Spectrum” A Group Exhibition (Brooklyn, NY)

July 17, 2013

Spectrum

 

SPECTRUM

Abstraction Through Spraypaint

FEATURING

Rubin, Hellbent, EKG, See One, Col

DATES

Opening: Saturday, July 27, 6-9pm Dates: July 27 – August 31, 2013

LOCATION

Gallery Brooklyn, 351 Van Brunt St, Brooklyn, NY 11231 p: 347.460.4063 | www.gallerybrooklyn.com
Hours: Thu–Sat 12–6pm, Sun 12-5pm, & appointment.

 

SPECTRUM: ABSTRACTION THROUGH SPRAYPAINT OPENS SATURDAY JULY 27, 2013

New York City, NY — On Saturday July 27, five street-oriented painters will exhibit together under the rubric of abstraction at Gallery Brooklyn in Red Hook. For these artists, abstraction as a formal aesthetic mode functions like a prism that fractures graffiti and street art into multiple facets creating a spectrum of mutation. This exhibition introduces original specimens of hybridization, re-creation, and singularity into the taxonomy of art on the streets and in the gallery.

NO BOUNDARIES BETWEEN GRAFFITI, STREET ART AND FINE ART

Each artist has created a unique, progressive body of work due to their allowance for porous boundaries between the visual vocabularies and techniques of graffiti, street art and fine art. Emphasizing their roots as graffiti writers, Rubin crafts wildstyle abstractions into graphic geometric deconstructions, whereas Col sculpts and weaves his into weighted three-dimensional shapes and flowing, entwining color fields. Graffiti artist See One does away with letterforms completely and creates tumultuous compositions of expressionistic techniques and sharp geometric shapes, a series dubbed “shards.” Hellbent utilizes stencils, a staple tool for street artists, to compose geometric compositions out of patterns that create an impression of a collage of lace and fabrics. EKG uses an “expressionistic pixilation” to compose a space from which to transmit a network of primitively rendered marks.

CURRENT WAVE OF INTEREST IN ABSTRACTION

Painters have struggled to capture pure visionary aesthetic forms since the turn of the twentieth century. This pilgrimage along the holy path of Abstraction achieved its most widely-recognized pinnacle of experimental success and international popularity in the mid-twentieth- century with Abstract Expressionism. As we pass into the twenty-first century, another wave of renewed activity and interest in abstraction has surged within the Graffiti and Street Art movements, as well as in the fine art community and institutions. Since 2010 Graffuturism.com, a living archive of Abstract and Progressive Graffiti, has been supporting established painters, inspiring developing ones, and attracting a growing interest from the public. Collectives that center around abstract and progressive graffiti have formed or become active again, such as Agents of Change, Transcend Collective, and Ikonoklast Movement. In 2011, the book Abstract Graffiti by Cedar Lewisohn and the ArtNews article Beyond Graffiti by Carolina Miranda were published. In 2012, MoMA opened their huge exhibition, Inventing Abstraction, a historical survey of the formative years from 1910-25. BrooklynStreetArt.com also presented Geometricks, curated by Hellbent, a large group exhibition of progressive graffiti and street art. This year the Guggenheim is currently displaying New Harmony, another survey of abstraction from 1919-1939. And through June 20th at The Hole gallery, Xstraction is the third iteration in a series of exhibits since 2008 that have focused on contemporary abstraction.

ABOUT THE CURATOR: CHOICE ROYCE

Lifelong Harlem resident Royce Bannon has been drawing his infamous monsters on the streets of NYC for over a decade. He recently was honored with inclusion in the city-wide art installation project Sing For Hope. This project involved painting one of 88 pianos, which were then installed around the five boroughs of NYC. Royce also currently writes a column for The Source magazine and has curated many other exhibitions including ones at The Woodward Gallery, powerHouse Arena, and 17Frost. [ Text by Daniel Feral ]

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Street Art of the Subtler Sort in Denmark

July 17, 2013

New Danish Street Art / Public Art Festival Retains the Simplicity of “Play”

In the past few years major cities have begun to sport Street Art festivals that boast and blare themselves with branding, t-shirts, press releases and 90 second video trailers touting the event like an Olympics with spray cans; hosted in the city center with declarations by officials and featuring live DJs, face painting, urban dance troupes, hashtags and corporate sponsorship.

Then there are the quieter ones. These invite you to think and discover your town in an integrated way, conjuring the  meandering route of the creative spirit as expressed upon walls dispersed among streets in town and around it’s periphery in a manner that might strike you as cleverly sane. A recent one just completed in Denmark reminds us of the latter approach that somehow challenges you with its lack of the obvious.

Pøbel. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

The name “Public Art Horsens” is not about horses. You would be forgiven for flinching at the thought of one more beating of that near dead “Public Art” trope from the last 20 years where identical statues of apples or pigs or ardvarks are used as canvasses by all manner of artists and scattered around a city in a big cheerful way.  No, this Horsens is the name of a mid-sized waterside town in Denmark of about 55,000 that didn’t really have much of a reputation for most of the last century aside from it’s prison and the convicts who lived there, according to Henrik Haven, who co-organized and co-curated this art event with his good friend Simon Caspersen.

Portrait of Pøbel with a “No Tresspassing” sign across the channel from his piece. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

“Horsens State Prison housed some of the worst criminals since it opened in 1853 and the released population had a tendency to stay in the city when they got out jail,” says Haven of one of the factors that soured outsiders to the idea of Horsens. “People linked Horsens with social problems, violent people and crime,” he remembers as he recounts some rough years in the 1980s and 90s. But that is all behind Horsens since the prison closed in 2006 and Haven says the city began a cultural rehabilitation of the city’s reputation by putting a strong focus on music, art and cultural events.

Pøbel. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

As far as art in the street goes, the newly completed series of walls and installations for “Public Art Horsens” is one of the least flashy and most conceptual, almost understated – you may have to focus your efforts to see it and appreciate it but you are rewarded for the effort. Check out the work of American public artist Brad Downey, who uses a circular saw to switch chunks of public pavement with one another. You won’t see his work unless you are looking down at the street, and Mr. Downey is satisfied that you will enjoy the discovery of bricked patches swapped and recontextualized. Have a look at Sam3 from Spain, who incorporates the heaping steaming pile of garbage at a dump into a one-color portrait he completes on its retaining wall.

 

Pøbel. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

So subtle and integrated is the nature of “Public Art Horsens” that you may never discover the birdhouses by Thomas Dambo or the mind-tricking duplication of a pizzeria façade right next to the original.  Less subtle fare is available of course; you will probably slow down to contemplate Pøbel’s stencil of a moose mating with a unicorn, or the be struck by the gentle environmental activism of his lounging fisherman at the industrial waterside who appears to be catching a mutated fishbottle.

Pøbel. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Pøbel. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Spains Escrif is similarly cryptic in a big way with his depiction of figures demonstrating techniques of self-defense that are humorously old-fashioned, while Örnduvald simply installs a quite oversized and glittering GPS map pin on the side of an impressive example of Danish historical architecture.

In a way, the scope and the tenor of the “Public Art Horsens” is refreshing because of it’s lack of hype. You can also see the roots of the D.I.Y. movement that spawned much of the modern Street Art scene at play here – particularly with Brad Downey sifting through the refuse to construct a waving wall of found canisters or swinging off a crane while messing around with some objects on a concrete lot. When it comes to the public sphere at Horsens, the experimental nature of Street Art still feels like play.

Örnduvald. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Örnduvald. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Brad Downey sifting through the refuse for material to create one of his installations. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Brad Downey. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Brad Downey gets carried away with his experimentations with a crane. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Brad Downey. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

A temporary installation by Brad Downey. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Brad Downey removes a square of pavement, and rotates it, and places it back into its original spot. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Brad Downey. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Here the artist Brad Downey replaces a sample of bricked walkway with one from a nearby neighbor. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Brad Downey. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Incorporating a temporary configuration of garbage, Sam3 imagines it as contiguous with a larger art piece. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Sam3. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Sam3. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Sam3. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Sam3. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Thoma Dambo. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Thomas Dambo. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Escif. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Escif. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Escif. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Escif. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

This Turkish pizzeria looked so nice they created it twice.

Escif. Horsens, Denmark. June, 2013. (photo © Henrik Haven)

“Public Art Horsens” features Pøbel, Escif, Sam3, Thomas Dambo, Örnduvald and local talents.

‘Public Art Horsens’ was created by the Municipality of Horsens along with organizer Simon Caspersen from ArtRebels, photographer Henrik Haven and the local creative community called ‘Stormsalen’.

 

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Various & Gould and Flower Power in Berlin

July 16, 2013

When was the last time you sent your grandma a greeting card? Huh?

You know she likes those ones with all the fancy swirly fonts and flowers growing up the trellis and probably a couple of cats wrestling. Get going son. You won’t have Grandma forever and you know how she loves her grand babies. And no, an e-card is not the same thing.

Various and Gould in Berlin (photo © Various & Gould)

That’s what we were thinking about when we saw this new piece from Street Artists Various & Gould, who found an old abandoned billboard in Berlin and decided to bring it back to life with a nostalgic nod to old-timey signage, advertising and their own collage robotic style. “It was just a perfect summer day for painting,” says Gould, who say it is a collaboration with their friend Chula. You could call it a personal beautification project, and Grandma might wonder about that mustachioed fella in his pajamas.

Various and Gould in Berlin (photo © Various & Gould)

Various and Gould in Berlin (photo © Various & Gould)

Various and Gould in Berlin (photo © Various & Gould)

Various and Gould in Berlin (photo © Various & Gould)

Various and Gould in Berlin (photo © Various & Gould)

Various and Gould in Berlin (photo © Various & Gould)

Various and Gould in Berlin (photo © Various & Gould)

Various and Gould in Berlin (photo © Various & Gould)

Various and Gould in Berlin (photo © Various & Gould)

Various and Gould in Berlin (photo © Various & Gould)

Various and Gould in Berlin (photo © Various & Gould)

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Phlegm at Boombarstick Brings a Theatre/Church Alive in Croatia

July 15, 2013

Sheffield, England-based Street Artist, fine artist, and illustrator Phlegm took part in the zero edition of Boombarstick in Croatia last month, and today we have some images of his new work there. Now abandoned, the building previously held a cinema and was originally a church. Many Street Artists pine for this sort of architectural opportunity, a pre-built stage with just enough existing detail to play foil for their work.

Phlegm. Boombarstick. Vodnjan, Croatia. (photo © Swen Serbic)

As is usual for the meticulous Phlegm, the facade was well played as an exterior staircase leading up to the bellfry – presumably where a bat or two may come flying out. A good example of working within the context of the locality, the five day transformation was an intensive public display of the dedication to the imagination of one artist, and an opening to the inner world of many who would care to travel there with him.

See Hitnes on our posting about Boombarstick last week, and special thanks to Swen Serbic for sharing his photos here for BSA readers.

Phlegm. Boombarstick. Vodnjan, Croatia. (photo © Swen Serbic)

Phlegm. Boombarstick. Vodnjan, Croatia. (photo © Swen Serbic)

Phlegm. Boombarstick. Vodnjan, Croatia. (photo © Swen Serbic)

Phlegm. Boombarstick. Vodnjan, Croatia. (photo © Swen Serbic)

Phlegm. Boombarstick. Vodnjan, Croatia. (photo © Swen Serbic)

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Images Of The Week: 07.14.13

July 14, 2013

We’re in the thick of summer now ya’ll, get out the lime popsicles and 40 SPF sunscreen and let’s ride our bikes out t0 Coney Island. New Yorkers don’t need those waves like Cali to be happy, we just like the sand and the crash of the waves and waft of french fries from up on the boardwalk. Check out that lady dragging the cooler up the beach inbetween all the towels and tanning babes and boys, “Budweisahhhh! “Ice cold beeaaah heeeah! Get ’em while their cold! Get ’em while I got ’em!”  Hey, wanna go in?

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring ADB, Bisco203, Bishop203, Cake, Cern, ClassicB23, Foxx Face, Don John, Don Rimx, El Niño de las Pinturas, Elle, Emma Krahn, Gilf!, J. Meloy, KA, Leias203, LUTU, ND’A, Perk, Sebs, SenTwo, Sex, SKings Wanky, Stikki Peaches, and Vexta.

Top image Don Rimx. Sex. El Niño De Las Pinturas. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Don Rimx. Sex. El Niño De Las Pinturas. 5Pointz, Queens. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

CERN (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gilf! Malala Yousafzai. Malala was honored at the UN on Friday, which was renamed “Malala Day”, to draw attention to the importance of education for all children. This girl was shot in the head last October by the Taliban for being on a school bus and going to school. She has recovered miraculously and Friday in New York she turned 16. And she spoke at the United Nations. To view her speech click here. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LUTU (photo © Jaime Rojo)

CAKE (photo © Jaime Rojo)

VEXTA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stikki Peaches (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Don John in Copenhagen (photo © Don John)

J. Meloy. 5Pointz, Queens.. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

SenTwo. ADB. 5Pointz, Queens. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ELLE (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Foxx Face (photo © Jaime Rojo)

SKings Wanky (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Classicb23 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

From left to right: Sebs . KA . Bisco203 . Leias203 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

PERK. 5Pointz, Queens. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bishop203 . ND’A 5Pointz, Queens. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Verrazano Bridge. New York City. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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